North American premiere
Camera Lucida Scheduled

Tin Can

Directed by Seth A. Smith

Sat August 07, 2021
9:30 PM

Virtual Screening
PRESENTED WITH Death Valley

Credits  

Official selection

Fantasporto Film Festival 2021
Sitges Film Festival 2020

Writer

Seth A. Smith, Darcy Spidle

Cast

Anna Hopkins, Michael Ironside, Kristin Langille, Simon Mutabazi, Chik White

Cinematographer

Kevin A. Fraser

contact

CUT/OFF/TAIL Pictures

Canada 2020 104 mins OV English Subtitles : English

A fungal infection by the name of Coral is ravaging wintry Eastern Canada, and the rest of the world. Leading parasitologist Fret (Anna Hopkins) is working on ways to control the strange life-form when she is brutally kidnapped. Intubated and weak, she wakes up in life-suspension chamber – a human-sized tin can – placed in a dark and damp brutalist facility where others are seemingly enduring the same fate. Who put her there and to what end? What brave new world awaits outside? As she struggles to escape and learn of her fellow inmates’ similar predicaments, unresolved trauma comes bubbling up the surface of her mind and might just hold the key to her freedom.

Canadian genre experimentalist Seth A. Smith (LOWLIFE, THE CRESCENT) returns to the Camera Lucida section with this timely yet thoroughly unpredictable science-fiction-cum-survival thriller. A confrontation with extreme isolation that speaks to our current moment, TIN CAN transmogrifies into a delight for the senses: a marvel of SF design with a painterly, synesthetic approach to plot. Channeling various influences and a rich history of B-movie resourcefulness, evoking works as varied as David Cronenberg’s early films (look out for Michael Ironside!), Albert Pyun’s one-location experiments and Yoshihiro Nishimura’s gory spectacles, TIN CAN evolves steadfastly from an experiment in claustrophobia into… something rather slimier and unclassifiable (with outstanding SFX by Allan Cooke). Most importantly, it never sacrifices the profoundly human core of its storytelling, which will resonate long after Fret’s confinement. – Ariel Esteban Cayer

Showings

Sat August 07, 2021
9:30 PM

Virtual Screening
PRESENTED WITH Death Valley